Tom Marvolo Jones
by Gwdihw
Summary: Voldemort was unable to understand love because he was raised in an environment devoid of it. One-shot exploring an alternative beginning to Tom's life if fate had gone a different way. AU.


Merope was ready to collapse. Clutching her lower belly, which had started to spasm at frequent intervals, she put one foot in front of the other. She knew little enough of pregnancy, for there had been no one to teach her, and each new development her body had undertaken during the last nine months had terrified her. So many times she had longed to simply lie down, curl herself up small and close her eyes – the thought was seductively comforting and infinitely better than the prospect of living without her husband.

_No!_ something inside her said, the same voice which made itself known whenever she had these thoughts. _If you die, so does the baby._

Merope caressed her bump again, imagining her little Tom could feel the embrace. She never doubted the fact that he would be a boy and the exact replica of his father. What cruel twist of biology would allow the child of two such people as Tom Riddle and Merope Gaunt to favour his mother?

Her belly clenched again, harder this time, and Merope cried out. She was starting to worry – was there something wrong with the baby? Could he feel this pain?

It was bitterly cold that night, the still, crisp air like ice in Merope's lungs. She was starting to lose sensation in her feet. One time, she might have lit a fire but these days, whenever she raised a wand, she heard Tom's voice, the beautiful husband she had spent so many lonely years dreaming about. It hissed in her ear.

'You filthy, unearthly _thing!_'

That was the last thing he had said to her.

He did not like magic, her Tom.

As she took another step, warm liquid gushed down between her legs. She cried out, frightened, looking around frantically for someone who could help; not for her own sake, but if they could only save her little Tom, even if it meant cutting him out of her.

Her eyes found a grim, dark building: 'Wool's Orphanage'.

An orphanage was a place where they looked after children, Merope knew that much. Surely they would look after her baby?

'You poor girl!'

Before Merope could stagger towards the orphanage, an arm clasped itself around her shoulders. Merope jerked, her eyes rolling fearfully to her left to see a sweet, kind face full of concern.

'Matthew, dear, we have to help her.'

A smartly-dressed man with quick, intelligent eyes nodded; he took his coat off immediately and wrapped in around Merope's shoulders.

'You better run and fetch my brother,' the woman said to Matthew. 'I can take her home from here, it isn't far.'

'Of course.'

Matthew ran off, disappearing into the misty gloom.

'My name's Margaret,' the kind woman said, looping an arm around Merope's waist with surprising strength and pulling Merope's arm over her shoulder. 'We've not far to walk, our house is just at the end of this street. Can you see the slightly bent lamppost? A car hit it last year. Anyway, our house is right behind it.'

Her voice was soft yet sprightly and very soothing to listen to, even if Merope was too tired to concentrate properly on the exact words.

'My brother's an excellent doctor,' Margaret continued. 'He'll have you right as rain in no time.'

The change in temperature was a shock to Merope as they went inside the pretty three-storey house behind the slightly bent lamppost, wall-papered in delicate pastels with highly-polished wood gleaming in the dying light of the fireplace. Stretched out in front of the glowing embers was a lazy-looking basset hound on a fur rug. He turned his head slightly as Merope and Margaret came in and gave a half-wag of his tail as a greeting but otherwise did not move.

Margaret briskly helped Merope out of her wet clothes and into a white cotton nightgown. It was cleaner and smelled fresher than anything Merope had ever worn. Even in her pain, she pawed at it in wonder.

Margartet, pausing only for a moment from fetching boiling water and clean towels, smiled gently at Merope's wonder and touched her hand.

'Is there someone we can telegram for you? Or telephone? To let them know you're safe.'

Merope thought briefly of her father and brother, flinched and shook her head. 'I have no one.'

The doctor was not long in coming, an upright gentleman with a neat moustache, his friendly countenance startlingly similar to his sister's in expression if not in features. For the second time in one night, Merope was spoken to with a warm politeness entirely new to her. The doctor, whom Margaret called John, calmed Merope with his cheery but professional bedside manner as he checked between her legs.

'We'll have baby out within the hour,' he said, but his smile did not hide the worry in his eyes. Merope was very good at reading people's emotions. She had to be; growing up, she had needed to read when her father was in a particularly foul mood or when her brother felt like engaging in malicious mischief. It was all in the eyes.

The doctor was whispering, now, to Matthew in the doorway.

'I daresay the baby'll be healthy enough, but I doubt the mother will live. That's a nasty fever she has.'

The words, whispered to stop her panicking, in fact soothed Merope far more than the cold flannel Margaret was pressing into her forehead.

She would die and her little Tom would live: she could not have asked for a better outcome. She closed her eyes and smiled contentedly as she prepared to push.

John pronounced Merope dead shortly after midnight. Margaret, her face white with shock, held the small baby in her arms, wrapped up warm and asleep. He had squalled briefly at his birth but had fallen asleep almost at once, his face as serene as an angel's. Margaret looked down at the doll-like creature with wisps of fine, dark hair and a dainty little nose, and felt a surge of warmth fill her. She had never considered herself the maternal type – she had explained that to Matthew when he had proposed to her – but this was different. This child needed her.

'A frightful pity,' John said, closing the young girl's eyes. Margaret realised with a jolt of horror that they had never asked the girl her name, the girl whose last words were to name her tiny son.

'I'll take him to the hospital,' John said, holding his arms out.

Margaret tugged the boy closer to her and looked quickly at John, who read her mind and nodded in agreement.

'We'll keep him here with us,' Margaret said. 'Can you send a wet nurse from the hospital?'

John raised his eyebrows but refrained from speaking his mind. 'They'll allow you one, yes, until you can find your own. There'll be plenty of working-class women in the area to choose from.' He took one last glance at Merope and lowered his voice respectfully. 'I'll send Hopkirk for the body first thing tomorrow.'

When they had seen John out, Margaret sat down in front of the fire where Zeus the dog was still snoozing, Tom Marvolo still asleep on her lap.

'Are you sure you know what you're doing, dear?' Matthew asked, sitting on the arm of her chair and stroking the baby's cheek.

'Certainly.'

'And your career?'

'I can be a scientist and a mother,' Margaret answered, a little tersely. 'There's no law to say I can't do both.'

Matthew laughed. 'If any woman can do it, it's you, Margaret.'

Margaret smiled at her little Tom. He might have had the distinct misfortune of losing his mother when he was minutes old, but she and Matthew would make sure that no child in England was more loved.


End file.
